Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Birds (Bentsen Park)

Now that we have an annual pass, we're going to Bentsen Park quite a bit. It's allowing us to see how things change over time...mostly, how the birds react to the conditions of the day.

Yesterday we saw quite a few birds early on, but then they took to cover and stayed there. A hawk flew over--possible explanation. The border helicopter flew over from time to time--the birds at the feeders don't like heli motors, it looks like. They got all jumpy when they heard it, but kept eating anyway.

Anhinga (also called "snake bird")

We almost got to the resaca too late for all the action!

Pelicans

The flock of pelicans was moving at casual-walking speed.

Behold the power of the peanut butter!

You can see part of the chow line forming for the peanut butter here--a redwing blackbird on the left, a green jay at the top, and the oriole being King of the Mountain for a moment. (This was at one of the blinds at the park.)

The area got around a third of an inch of rain (almost 1 cm) over the weekend, which greens up a few things but is not what we need for a really good bloom.

Air temps were in the 70's as it was still morning. Clear, sunshine, and a breeze came up while we were there. "Chamber of Commerce weather" again!